4. Repeat
Barbie, I've seen you sacrifice yourself for total strangers. But in the future, there can be no more lies.
In the future? You sure?
Maybe.
He's done some stupid things in his time. He's done some very stupid in his time. He has one scar too many from getting into bar fights he had nothing to do with in the first place, helping out a friend or just having one drink too many. He has spent more nights in lock up than he'd like to admit, more nights with women he had no intention towage up next to the next day, more under the table deals, gambles, dirty poker games in smoky back rooms of dodgy bars. And of course, there was the work he did for Maxine.
But the stupidest thing that Barbie has done was make the same stupid things over and over again ever since leaving the military. He would go back to the same bar he got kicked out of the night before for fighting only to get back into another fight with the same people over the same card game. He would sleep with the same woman, forget her name before the night is over, disappear from her bed before dawn, and then do it all over again a few weeks later. He would lose his money over and over again to the same bookie over the same dumb bets over and over again.
For a very smart guy, Barbie was dumb enough to repeat the same stupid things time after time after time.
Until now, until her.
I'm coming back for you.
I know.
She'd given him a second chance, something he was not used to, something her never expected. And that night he made her and he made himself a promise. No more lies. He knew his damaged soul's only chance at redemption was through her and for once he had a reason, a reason to wake up every morning, a reason to survive, a reason to stop screwing up.
There were to be no more lies. Never again. And he's lived up to it. Ever since that evening, everything was laid out in the open between them, which was probably why they argued a lot. He was not used to it, the honestly, but he found out he preferred it that way. She was right. Of course she was, she always is.
He takes a moment, locks her gaze with his, confidently, he wants her to know, to understand that his words are not an empty promise, not a lover's false song meant. He wants her to believe him, for every part of her to feel the weight of his promise to her. To wait for him, to not give up on him. He means it, truly, honestly, because there are no lies between them. So when he says he is coming back for her, he means it, whatever it takes, whatever it means, his path will always be towards her. He will come back to her because his journey cannot be traveled without her, because saving each other is what they do. Because he won't repeat his mistakes ever again, there can be no more lies.